THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 51 
BALLADS AND BALLAD LITERATURE. 
Read before the Hamilton Association, December 22nd, 1892. 
BY H. B. WITTON. 
With almost all peoples, ballads and rude poetry furnish the 
oldest fragments of history. Buckle, the historian, says: ‘All his- 
tory is at first ballads.” Besides their contributions to history, songs 
have helped to inspire national bravery, and ina variety of ways have 
made men happy and useful. The Norsemen had their Skalds ; the 
Latin races their trouveres, troubadours, jougleurs and minstrels ; 
the Germans had their minnesingers and meistersingers ; and the 
Britons and Celts their gleemen and bards. Maistre Wace, who 
lived in the middle of the XII century, has left an imaginary des- 
cription of the various poets who took part at the coronation of King 
Arthur. His is an interesting picture of a medieval minstrel 
company. His ‘idle singers of an empty day” he classifies into 
“jougleurs, singers and rhymers,” and adds; ‘‘many songs might 
‘““you heat, rote songs, vocal songs, fiddler’s lays and notes, lays for 
‘“‘harps, lays for sytols, lyresand corn pipes, symphonies, psalteries, 
““monochords, cymbals. Of performers there were plenty, male 
“and female, and some said tales and fables.” 
At festivals, public and private, the minstrel was an important 
personage. In the Gothic hall of the noble his harp and voice were 
ready with stories ofttimes told, but ever new, of knightly bravery 
in battle, and devotion in love; while at more public gatherings such 
as the visitation of a bishop, the installation of an abbot, or above 
all, at the coronation of a king, national themes became the burden 
of his song. But the minstrel was as much at home, and was as 
welcome in the cottage of the peasant as in the hall of the baron. A 
fragment from “‘ Chevy Chace,” some of the exploits of Robin Hood, 
or a minor ditty of local bravery, love, devotion or suffering, sufficed 
to make all listeners akin, and assured the minstrel a welcome where- 
ever he went. Chaucer’s picture of the minstrel of his time is real- 
istic and evidently from the life : 
